Wednesday, February 25, 2009

I saw bits and pieces of Bobby Jindal's rebuttal to Obama's speech last night, but I didn't really get an impression one way or the other. I didn't know whether or laugh or cry at this hit piece from the AP in today's Houston Chronicle, though...

NEW YORK — Insane. Childish. Disaster.And those were some of the kinder comments from political pundits about Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his response to President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night....David Brooks, a conservative New York Times columnist who has criticized aspects of the stimulus plan, nonetheless called Jindal’s arguments “insane” and tone-deaf given the dire economic challenges the country faces.“To come up in this moment in history with a stale, ‘Government is the problem, you can’t trust the federal government’ is just a disaster for the Republican Party,” Brooks said on PBS’ The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. “It’s not where the country is, it’s not where the future of the country is.”Fox News commentator Juan Williams focused on Jindal’s delivery.“It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was singsongy,” Williams said, adding that the content of the speech was “very simplistic and almost childish.”Penni Pier, a political communication specialist at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University, said Jindal’s presentation was overly colloquial and his message of less government and more tax cuts was substantively thin.“It sounded like the same old rhetoric — we had tax cuts the last eight years, and look where it got us,” Pier said. “Jindal was also trying to be so familiar, he lost credibility. Obama is familiar, but at the same time always a statesman.”...Rush Limbaugh, arguably the nation’s most prominent conservative voice, defended Jindal on his radio show Wednesday while acknowledging that “stylistically,” Obama had outshined Jindal.“The people on our side are making a real mistake if they go after Bobby Jindal,” Limbaugh said. “We cannot shun politicians who speak for our beliefs just because we don’t like the way he says it.”

Simpering RINO David Brooks. Yes, friends and neighbors, that's how they balanced out raving moonbat Juan Williams. Good grief, is it any wonder the people think the media is hopelessly biased? Calling David Brooks a conservative is like calling a frozen TV dinner haute cuisine, or calling Rascal Flatts a country band. Of course it's only fair to point out that they did mention the remarks of Rush Limbaugh, whose opinion I would wager is much closer to that of most conservatives; but still that was an appallingly imbalanced story. As far as tax cuts "getting us" to where we are now, I think it's a bit disingenuous to argue that without also mentioning that those tax cuts were accompanied by vastly increased government spending — spending, one might add, that was very likely supported by the likes of David Brooks and his ilk. Not that I expected anything more from the AP OR the ivory-tower academics, but that in itself is a sad commentary on where we are as a society. I am reminded once again of the words of Bill Whittle:

The inability of external reality to become perfect is a profound disappointment for people who live in their own fantasy worlds where everything is perfect. Such people expect the external world, the world beyond the boundaries of our Sanctuary, to behave like a celebrity awards show dinner or a faculty lounge. Of course, only very, very small areas of the world behave like a celebrity award show dinner or a faculty lounge. But when enough people experience nothing else, and when those pampered, bored, hollow and guilty elites control the way information is reported, run the schools and universities in which reality-free theories are taught, and hold the keys to the manufacture of a society's myths and stories and culture — well, then the disconnect between the Civilization and reality becomes so acute that the wing stalls and what was once a soaring airplane becomes a few tons of metal plummeting earthward.

How much longer do we have until that wing stalls? Will the passengers wake up and realize what's going on before we get to that point? I realize things are much different now, as the old news sources don't have the oligopoly they once did, but still it's frightening to think how many people take those old sources at the same face value they always have.

Unorganized Militia Propaganda Corps

About Me

I am a very opinionated guy, Texan and quite proud of it. I lean toward the right politically but have a few libertarian tendencies that my conservative brothers and sisters might not agree with. I like guns, old country music and a lot of other things.

Essential Reading

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.-- Cesare Beccaria, in On Crimes And Punishments, later quoted by Thomas Jefferson

Echo

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.-- Alexander Hamilton